EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD Booklet
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EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 2 EDSD 2029 The Songs Of PETE ATKIN&CLIVE JAMES 32 1 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 4 DISC ONE PA: By the time I came to make this album in the Project co-ordination – Val Jennings summer of 1974, Clive was becoming much more CD package – Jools at Mac Concept Pete Atkin’s albums on the Secret Drinker famous for things other than his lyric-writing, CD mastering – Alchemy Edsel label: RCA LPLI 5062, 1974 mainly for presenting Granada TV’s Cinema Ephemera courtesy of the collections of Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger…plus programme, and then for writing his revolutionary Pete Atkin and Clive James [EDSS 1029] TV column in the Observer newspaper. We were CD front cover photo – Fay Godwin Driving Through Mythical America…plus back on the friendly, familiar ground of Morgan Strapline photo – Sophie Baker [EDSS 1030] Studios in beautiful downtown Willesden, London Huge thanks – Pete Atkin, Clive James, Steve A King At Nightfall + The Road Of Silk NW10, in the ultrasafe hands of Roger Quested, Birkill and Caroline Cook [2 CD] [EDSD 2028] for whom the experience of engineering my Secret Drinker…plus + Live Libel For everything (and we mean everything) relating albums would cause him to give up hands-on [2 CD] [EDSD 2029] studio work in order to develop what’s generally to Pete Atkin’s works, visit www.peteatkin.com, acknowledged to be just about the best but make sure you’ve got plenty of time to spend! Visit www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk for the monitoring system anyone’s ever come across. Then of course, you’ll want to visit Edsel catalogue and the many other fine labels www.clivejames.com that make up the Demon Music Group. CJ: Pete and I had an ambition to write songs that would break loose and live by themselves, and I suppose Secret Drinker shows that ambition reaching its apex, or its first apex anyway. Some of the songs on this album were, I think, among the most assured things we did, but it was steadily becoming harder to ignore the likelihood that life was going to get tougher the more we were confirmed in our role of appealing Lyrics – Clive James to a minority audience. The music business in Music – Pete Atkin those days was about the majority audience. It Produced and arranged by Pete Atkin still is, but the minority now has a better chance Original sound recordings Engineered by Roger Quested of finding the product. Even for the time, Pete’s made by Sony Music Recorded at Morgan Studios, Willesden, London record companies did an unusually thorough job Entertainment Ltd. of fumbling or forgetting every promise they Sony Music Entertainment NW10, June – July 1974 Ltd are the exclusive Art direction – Pat Doyle made, but they might not have had the answer even had they been competent. What we needed licensees for the UK. Design – Sutton Paddock Associates Disc 1 p 1974 Sony Music Photography – Fay Godwin was the web, but it hadn’t yet been invented. Entertainment (UK) Ltd. Pete Atkin and Clive James, January 2009 Disc 2 p 1975 Sony Music Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards Entertainment (UK) Ltd. Paul Keogh – electric guitar © 2009 Demon Music Daryl Runswick – bass guitar, double bass Group Ltd. Marketed by Barry Desouza – drums Edsel, a division of the Frank Ricotti – percussion, vibraphone Demon Music Group Ltd, London, W1W 7TL. The Ronnie Ross – baritone saxophone Demon Music Group is a 2 2 entertain company. 31 Manufactured in the EU. 2 31 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 6 Tocqueville had predicted, one of the When a snot-nosed little kid called Zimmerman consequences of a fully developed American Was seeking a new surname that would scan democracy was that the instinct for credulous Uncle Seabird filled his lungs with hash servility flourished along with every other instinct. And “Weberman” he muttered in a flash If I were writing the lyric now I would put Al Gore “There’s a new group down a hole you ought to into it. The lyric needs updating, which any hear” genuinely felt lyric should never need. The chief Said the telephone in Brian Epstein’s ear strike against the lyrics on Live Libel is that too “But let’s not haggle now about my fee many of the references are tied to their time, but I Tom Parker handles these affairs for me” suppose that if you can tell they are, then they really aren’t. What always counts most, however, The last and greatest festival of all is the music, and it pleases me greatly to know Was Uncle Seabird’s acid test and ball that some of these tunes still set people humming They say one row of people passed a joint along. From Yasgur’s Farm clear to Zabriskie Point Uncle Seabird was an action man Crosby Stills and Clapton, Young and Nash He knew the scene before the scene began Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash The first cat to drop acid in the Haight They all backed Yoko Ono while she ... sang He understood the lyrics of The Weight And Elvis Presley read from R D Laing When Fillmore West was still a carousel When Uncle Seabird wheeled onto the stage And the chick to know was Luria Cantrell He was crowding eighty-seven years of age Uncle Seabird tried hard to be nice “We are stardust, we are ... (croak)” he cried When Berry Gordy asked him for advice And the children yelled his name out as he died Uncle Seabird, Uncle Seabird had the word PA: What we couldn’t know at the time was that Uncle Seabird, Uncle Seabird had the word this track would be the last one on my last album Uncle Seabird, Uncle Seabird led the herd for more than twenty years, until the ever-to-be- thanked Steve Birkill put me on the web and it all When Uncle Seabird wrote for Rolling Stone 1. Rain-Wheels 3.23 The lyric is full of desolate envy but he turned it started up again, and so to end with a small into a rabble-rouser, which was only proper. The A generation felt much less alone Recorded on 15th June 1974, plus later overdubs unresolved ambiguity doesn’t seem altogether song had revolution in its veins. His footloose odyssey went so far back inappropriate, and as if at Robert Graves’s CJ: Nowadays the narrator would be trying to get He recalled not having heard of Kerouac careless comma, The storm has dumped a mirror in the street into Notting Hill, not out of it, and the girl would He represented youth in all its force A Jaguar goes by like the fastest MTB in all the be driving a Beamer runabout rather than a 4.2 For evolution has to take its course All songs published by Bucks Music Group Ltd, fleet Jag. It was a lot of car, the 4.2, so almost When the children queued to hear the Grateful except “Crazy Over You” published by Redwood The girl at the wheel is food for heroes certainly it belonged to a rich boyfriend. The way Dead Music Ltd/Campbell Connelly & Co Ltd. Her hubs full of haloes are strobing like a finger neon looked when reflected in a wet street was His wheelchair glittered somewhere up ahead dialling zeroes something I first noticed in Sydney when I was a kid. There is less neon today: digital lighting has She has to get home to the Vale of Health taken over, and it doesn’t have the same glow. She has to get out of Notting Hill Those wire wheels would have strobed only to a Would she care for us cripples if she could? 30 camera lens, not to the unaided human eye, but I Does her throbbing four-point-two shyly beat for 3 was taking liberties. Pete was taking them too. me and you beneath the hood? 30 3 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 8 And back to her nest in amongst the Yes his monicker is Lonesome A discreet little concert to push the album into the wealth But he’s never on his ownsome stores Where the rain falls warm and the As he rides that strawberry roansome I’ll be so damned humble I can only just bear the winds don’t chill On the stage his baritonesome’s applause Her Firestones go trailing spray Like Godzilla on the phonesome If it all pans out I’ll hardly even have to sing They spin, they grip, they whip away Lettin’ out a happy groansome Just stand looking delicate ten feet in front of Through trembling reflections of the After eatin’ blood and bonesome Carole King That’s a million-dollar moansome lights of intersections I-D with the emphasis on the I And his monicker is Lonesome And the brightly flourished crayon of E and that means the spotlight falls on me Lonesome Levis Lane the neon ... I-D-entity crisis rock, I’m just so fragile 13. Sheer Quivering Genius 2.44 I-D-entity crisis rock, please call me Ishmael 2. Sessionman's Blues 4.25 (featuring James Paler) I-D-entity crisis rock Recorded on 21st June 1974, plus Recorded on 12th May 1975 at Morgan Studios Oh no – not the stigmata again! later overdubs PA: The object of this bit of gratuitous derision is 14.